In between two extremes, who each make their decisions based on set of concrete and unchanging values there is a third group that actually swings elections between them.
To explain what I mean I need to talk about differences between ideological and non-ideological people. Ideologically driven people like to imagine their ideologies and political/social/economic system in vacuum and support them based on their principles and theoretically fairness rather than actual outcomes and practical implications. No matter how much their favorite system fails in real world, they will still defend it, blame problems on anything but on the system itself or downright refuse to acknowledge any issues at all. For them outcomes are distant second at best, if not completely irrelevant. All they care for is whether its right or wrong.
In most extreme cases they would even defend literal unabated extermination, if it is done in accordance with their value system. Both communists and capitalists are equally guilty of this behavior, even though communists had a lot more such incidents to somehow justify due to their many mistakes. However, when capitalism clearly does not work, its supporters just as much will not admit any fault or accept the notion that something must be done about it if that something goes against their principles. Republican party behavior during Great Depression in the US shows us just this. The only reason capitalism ended up not starving millions to death was the fact the US was and is a democracy. Democrat FDR, who came to power and did what needed to be done to fix the problem, no matter how much Republicans and capitalist purists criticized it as immoral and wrong. Under communism however in a similar situation an oppositional party cannot come to power, and millions end up actually starving to death or get exterminated by ideologically faithful ones.
Compared to that, more practical, non-ideological people make their decisions based on outcomes rather than values, if it gives them more money, better quality of life and more freedom, then its better. Its these people who ultimately tip the scales towards one or another party in a democracy. The party that offers these guys more always wins elections. No matter how much supporters of Romney or Killary would blame the other side of politics for voting against their 'star candidate', in reality they lost not because the other side mobilised better, it's because non-ideological people did not felt their 'star candidate' offered them anything of substance and voted for the other guy. Even if they are 'star candidate' in your ideologically covered eyes, they might as well be a dud in someone else's more sober eyes.
In a non-democratic influence of non-ideological people are weaker as one ideological group hogs all the power and prevents any outsiders from getting anywhere near the high offices. Non-ideological people often leave such societies in favor of democratic ones, because democracy offers non-ideological people better quality of life and more power. However, even in un-democratic society a non-ideological people could still play the same power changing rule, just through the revolution instead of ballot box. When systems fall and revolution succeeds, it's because these non-ideological people backed the revolutionaries.
Thus, no matter what your system is, the non-ideological people are still the kingmakers who decide if your system lives or falls.
How they decide who falls and who does not. Simple, based on outcomes. All places where communist revolution succeeded had capitalism at its worst, full of rent seeking property owners who did nothing but collect money for nothing more than having a piece of paper that said this or that belongs to them. In places where capitalism, despite playing by exactly the same rules, produced dynamic corporations that actually innovate and improve lives around them, communists never made any inroads.
An ideological purist may say that property rights have to be respected and protected. No matter whether an owner is a dynamic leader like Elon Musk or Sergei Brin, who constantly innovate and build new things people want, or a jet set spoiled socialite who never worked a day. It's hard to make many examples of the latter, as people like that rarely make news) but Athina Onassis is one example. However, there are a good number of rents seeking rich, who spend all their time socialising with other rich people while joking about poor people, who actually had to work to pay them their ever-increasing rent. It's their property and you have no right to any of it, that what ideologically pure capitalist supporter will say.
However, if you remove ideological glasses, you can clearly see that they are not the same. Elon Musk and Sergei Brin are useful and beneficial, while rent seekers are nothing but parasites. Countries that where people like Elon Musk and Sergei Brin achieve success and build things, do not have socialist revolutions no matter how loudly local leftists call for it. Countries where these two were born do not count as these clearly did not gave them opportunities they deserved and thus deserve to languish in misery. Its countries that only have rent seekers, asking for more and more pay for use of resources that belong to them that get these revolutions.
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